


Night Watchman

by JazzRaft



Series: Dark at Night [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-18 01:00:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9356990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: “When I said ‘whatever helps you sleep at night,’ I didn’t mean this.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [tumblr](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/155040415532/noctisnyx-22-or-2-i-cant-decide-between-them) for #2 & #22 in [this prompt post.](http://jazzraft.tumblr.com/post/155032475672/sentence-dialogue-drabble-prompts)

“When I said ‘whatever helps you sleep at night,’ I didn’t mean this.”

Nyx could fill a book with the amount of weird and random tasks he was given on the job. “Confessions of a Confounded Kingsglaive” he’d call it. Of all the things he’d include in its chapters though, this he thought would be wiser to leave out.

“You do realize that no explanation in the world is going to prevent me from getting dishonorably discharged, imprisoned for a few miserable months, and then executed with extreme prejudice if someone sees this, right?”

“Isn’t the Kingsglaive supposed to be seen and not heard? ‘Cause you do an awful lot of talking.”

The prince’s voice was muffled in the crook of Nyx’s neck, drowsy breath puffing softly against his skin. The glaive had been in this position once before that he could remember, after a party at the palace wherein he was tasked with making sure Noctis didn’t sneak around the bar and help himself to some liquid courage to survive talking to foreign dignitaries all night. His greatest failure and, simultaneously, greatest victory for somehow managing to steer the drunken Noctis around the ballroom on strategic routes which avoided all other human contact. The night had ended with Nyx dragging the prince to his bedroom, miraculously vanishing from the party without anyone else being the wiser, and being pinned underneath the smaller man as he snored himself into unconsciousness. Nyx had been stuck there for hours. Every time he’d tried to wriggle out from under him, Noctis grunted in his sleep and clutched onto Nyx like a child hugging a teddy bear. Thankfully, Nyx was the only one of them that remembered the incident the next morning, but there was no hoping there would be any forgetting tonight, given that Noctis had been entirely sober and in full control of his faculties when he requested Nyx’s presence.

“Remind me again why the hell I agreed to this?” Nyx asked, more of himself than of Noctis.

“Because I’m royalty and that means you have to do whatever I say.”

“You know, technically, I don’t work for you.”

“You work for the king. That could be me any day now, so…”

Noctis curled around him, trailing into silence. Nightmares had plagued the prince since long before Nyx had been in service to the throne; hidden fears, the dread of an empty future, twenty years’ worth of anxiety and insignificance and the burden of a heavy crown. Which is where Nyx took his cue from. He’d been put on patrol in the prince’s hall, pacing the massive passage, imagining shadows turning into daemons so he’d have some sort of entertainment. On one of his passes of the prince’s bedroom, Noctis appeared at the door, disheveled and glassy-eyed and breathing heavy, looking like he’d been running for his life. Nyx had his daggers at the ready, expecting an assassin to be at heels, but the prince just sighed, hung his head, and mumbled, “Can you do me a favor?”

Because it was his job and because he was expecting the favor to be something trivial like fetch him a glass of water, or sleeping pills, or to fluff his pillow, Nyx had said, “Yes, of course, anything, Your Highness.” The last thing he’d expected was for the prince to bite his lip, avoid his gaze, and ask if Nyx would lay in bed with him until he fell asleep.

“Having other people around seems to keep the nightmares away,” he’d said, cringing at how pathetic he sounded.

And because he was contractionally obligated to never say no to the king - present or future – Nyx had laid down on top of the sheets and let Noctis huddle up to his side under them.

Presently, Nyx stared at the ceiling, feeling the air grow heavy with the dreadful thought that King Regis could die at any moment, orphaning his son to a kingdom he wasn’t ready to lead. They all knew it was coming, none of them knew just when. And if it worried the glaive, the thought crippled the prince. Nyx felt a shudder roll through Noctis, faint and strained in an effort to keep his feelings contained, but impossible not to notice when he was pressed so close to his side.

“Can I ask why me?” Nyx asked into the silence, trying to cut the tension with a change of subject.

“You mean why did I ask you to sleep with me?”

“Please don’t say that,” Nyx hissed through his teeth, as if the walls had ears and that sentence, taken out of context, would mean the signing of his death warrant.

Noctis chuckled, the sound drumming from his chest to vibrate through Nyx’s own. Nyx glared down at the wicked little monster. Easy for him to laugh when it wasn’t his head on the king’s chopping block should they be discovered in this compromising position.

“Because you were here…”

“…And?” Nyx prompted, hearing the prolonged space at the end of Noctis’s words. It was a pause that indicated an elaboration, but the prince restrained it.

There was another pause before Noctis shifted, propping himself onto his side next to Nyx. His head hung over him, eyes searching his own, a nervousness fluttering throughout the blue irises.  Nyx’s brow creased in confusion, and he stared up at Noctis, encouraging him to speak.

“Can I be honest?” Noctis asked.

“Sure.”

“I asked you because you don’t seem to give a shit.”

Nyx blinked. He raised a questioning brow. Noctis bit his lip, but forced himself to go on. “My father, my friends, most of the people in the palace… They all care so damn much about me. They all worry, and stress, and tie themselves up into knots trying to fix something that bothers me. And it’s not that I’m ungrateful, it’s just that I… It hurts to know that I’m the cause of all of that. It hurts to see that my stupid problems are tearing up the people I care about. But, you? Honestly, it doesn’t seem like you could care less if I can’t sleep. If I totally snapped and got sent to an asylum tomorrow, it would kill my father and it would break my friends’ hearts, but you’d just go on like it was another day. And that’s why I asked for your help. Because I don’t think I can hurt you by being hurt myself. And I’m so tired of hurting people.”

Noctis sunk back onto the pillows, off of Nyx and leaving the glaive to gaze up at empty air. It was quiet for a long while. The weight of his own words made Noctis tremble, sending small shockwaves through the mattress beneath Nyx. Nyx considered his next words very, very carefully, turned them over in his head a few times to make sure they were right, and finally said:

“That’s heavy, Highness.”

There was a beat of nothing, and then Noctis snorted in laughter.  He brought a hand to his head and covered his eyes, laughing into the darkness. He dragged his palm down his face. Dampness shimmered at the edges of his eyes as he glanced at the nearby clock.

“Well, it’s two in the morning. That’s usually my hour for the heavy shit.”

Nyx turned to look at him, analyzing the profile of his face. The tendons in his neck were wrought tight, a knot in his throat, but a smile on his lips. A crooked, broken-up curve, but a smile nonetheless. The messy black feathers of his hair caressed the corners of his eyes, catching what may have been tears from falling along his cheeks. He was avoiding Nyx’s glance. Honesty was discouraged from royalty. More often than not, it cost them an alliance of some sort or another. Noctis’s arms coiled around himself, braced for a rejection, for an empty bed, for another black night spent hiding beneath the covers as if his nightmares couldn’t reach right through the thin fabric and smother him.

Carefully, Nyx reached an arm behind Noctis’s head, resting it against his shoulders, and tugging him back to his side. The prince tensed for a moment, unsure of the invitation, but his body grew pliant against Nyx once again. A long sigh, full of fear and relief, washed across Nyx’s chest as Noctis rested his head against it.

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” Nyx said, a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. “Otherwise I might be insulted by the fact that you essentially just called me a heartless bastard.”

A small laugh hummed against him and Noctis buried his face against Nyx’s neck to hide from the accusation, as well as to hide from a million other demons.

“Get some rest, little king. I’ll keep a look-out.”

Noctis draped an arm over his waist, hugging the knight close and breathing a whispered “thank you” into his skin. Sleep came to him quickly after that, and a thousand thoughts raced around Nyx’s head even quicker. Staring at the ceiling, listening for a hitch in the prince’s breath, the glaive thought about his schedule for the coming day, thought about the king’s wrath, thought about his head on a spike over the castle gate, thought about every little thing that would make giving an actual, genuine, non-contractional shit about Noctis a never-ending hellscape out of his life. But, all those thoughts couldn’t make the warmth inside his chest cool back down to nothing. Nor encourage him to leave the prince’s side before dawn relieved him of his vigil. Nor keep him from sharing his bed the next night the nightmares plagued him… Or the one after that.


End file.
